Image by Jhon Dal from Pixabay
“You know, Louisa, I love having summer all year and all, but there are things that I really am going to miss about going back to school.”
“Me too, Vertran, me too.”
“Well, you know, ladies first and all.”
“Okay … thank you … … a lady appreciates a gentleman, and it just makes contemplating going into the weirdest fourth grade ever easier to bear.”
“So true, Louisa, so true.”
Nine-year-old Louisa Dubois Chennault was talking with her best friend nine-year-old Vertran Stepforth, who had proposed marriage to her at the end of the spring.
“I miss the smell of a fresh backpack, Vertran … I mean, people talk about a new car smell, but that costs too much.”
“Yeah, Louisa, I heard cars are going for more than $10,000 nowadays. Hopefully, Covid-19 can at least bring prices down to a reasonable place again. Anyway, I'm sorry, it's still your turn.”
“I'm telling you, Vertran – all these people spending way too much money on cars would be cured if they just understood how good a fresh backpack smells and looks, all full of new school supplies. After a while, backpacks just start to smell like hallways, lunch, and all the people that are touching them, but a new backpack? Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!”
“That is pretty sweet … I always need the new notebooks and stuff too.”
“And then there were the jazz scarves, Vertran. I really miss those.”
“Jazz scarves? Never heard of that.”
“Yeah, so, uniforms are as boring as all get out. That's something I don't miss at all, and my school majored on boredom except for one thing. White blouse, black skirt, black shoes, but, every grade had its own scarf with Mardi Gras colors and that made it all work!”
Louisa was from a Black French family in Louisiana, and had just moved to Lofton County, VA in the spring.
“This is the thing, Vertran: you gotta have some jazz in your life if you are from Louisiana, in your music, your food, even at school, or people will just go crazy. I am going to miss my yearly scarf upgrade!”
“Yeah, because we don't have anything like that up here. Virginia is kinda different than all that, although Piedmont Blues are pretty nice.”
“That's Virginian jazz – it's cool! That would make a nice scarf too!”
“Yeah, I guess it would.”
“Okay – your turn, Vertran!”
Vertran was silent for a moment, and then heaved a big sigh.
“Can I tell you a big secret, Louisa?”
“Sure. It's safe with me!”
“I just miss the people, and it's really getting to me.”
Louisa got really quiet, thinking of what her mother and grandmother would do in a situation like this.
“I'm the middle child of seven at home – three too old for me to hang out with, three too young. Sometimes I think that if I didn't have you, I just couldn't take the loneliness I feel, and the pressure. My grandparents and your grandparents help a lot, but it's hard, really hard, not to be going to school. I feel sad about it.”
“I'm sorry, Vertran, I really am.”
“You know what I miss the most?”
“What?”
“When you get to school, all the voices in the hallway … you know how it says in the Bible that the Lord Jesus Christ has a voice that is like that of many waters?”
“Yep.”
“The first time in the hallway at school is like the water of many voices … all your friends and friends you don't even know yet, all talking and laughing and nobody is alone and everyone is learning. I mean, they may not be interested in whatever is in class, and, given that everybody in third grade in the public schools here is assumed to be stupid, folks just go to sleep in class because teachers bore us with their lack of caring about teaching stupid level stuff – but before all that, it's just … it's just such a coming together, you know.”
“Now that I think about it, yeah, Vertran, I can see that … just wading into the cool, refreshing water of many voices our own age, people just going through growing up at the same pace we are, sort of.”
“Sort of … nobody was doing like 10th grade English in these parts last year.”
“Yep … no one was doing 13th grade math last year, but, that doesn't even matter when you are with the right people.”
“Exactly. It was just the only time all day when I could be a regular kid for a while. I really miss that.”
“I can tell, Vertran. I'm so sorry.”
“It's not your fault, Louisa. Thanks for listening.”
“Any time, Vertran. I'm here for you.”
“And I'm here for you too, Louisa.”
After their conversation, Louisa sat and thought for a long time, and then called her father, Louis Chennault, who was a filmmaker.
“Bon jour, mon cherie!” he cried upon hearing her voice.
“Bon jour, mon père, she answered. “J'ai besoin d'une faveur pour un ami, s'il vous plaît.”
Dad, I need a favor for a friend, please... and Monsieur Chennault was moved by his daughter's compassion on Vertran and was glad to oblige. Meanwhile, Vertran went and asked his mother if he could use just a little of all his YouTube revenues to make a special purchase.
A week later, a package arrived at the Stepforth house from Monsieur and Madame Chennault, and, a package from Major and Mrs. Stepforth arrived at the Dubois family home in Virginia. These packages resulted in two teary-eyed families and of course, a phone call between Vertran and Louisa.
“See, this is why I'm going to marry you! This is why!” he said. “You had your dad do School Sounds and Scenes and Friends for me and it was the most special gift ever! Thank you, Louisa! Thank you!”
“I'm going to be so happy to marry you because I love the Piedmont Blue jazz scarf with lightning all down the front like Louis Armstrong's high notes to match – and the matching backpack that smells soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good! I'd be wearing them now, but, it's August 4 and a thousand degrees – but thank you so much, because this backpack will smell good until the end of the pandemic, Vertran!”
“Right, because if we can't be in school we still gotta make it work, and we can, because I love you, and I know that you love me, and everything is going to be all right and we're going to make it and –.”
Louisa's grandfather, Monsieur Jean-Luc Dubois, gallantly handed his handkerchief to his wife, Madame Ébène-Cerise Dubois.
“This is an unexpected episode of La Romance de Vertran et Louisa,” he purred in his big bass voice, “but it is among the best.”
“Oui oui, mon cher,” Madame Dubois responded as she dried her tears. “C'est magnifique.”